Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has disclosed that the Federal Government is working with stakeholders to raise N1 trillion to provide affordable housing for Nigerians.
Osinbajo disclosed this yesterday at the 22nd Nigerian Economic Summit in Abuja where he chaired a Roundtable on Job Creation, Skills and Employment.
He said the proposed project would also help create jobs. He explained that the job creation unit in his office had worked out a framework with the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) to focus on three sectors to create employment.
Three sectors that are to gain from the fund include construction, agriculture as well as Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Under Construction sector, the vice-president said the Federal Government was trying to work on a social housing programme called the Family Home Fund.
“The Family Home Fund is a financial intervention in social housing in the country.
“We are trying to raise a fund which will come to about N1 trillion. We have aggregated fund from the private sector, local and international funds already.
“The whole idea is to be able to intervene in mortgage financing so that developers can build special houses to the specification of the Federal Government.
“Already eight or nine states are giving land and Certificate of Occupancy for social housing scheme.
“The idea is that any Nigerian who can afford N30,000 should be able to own a house,’’ he said.
Osinbajo said that there would emerge job creation opportunities as technicians, engineers and skilled workers would benefit from the scheme.
He said there would also be training opportunity from the scheme.
The problem of housing in Nigeria has been of interest to every administration and official estimates suggest that more than 17 million houses are needed to cover the country’s 180 million citizens.
